People ask where I get my motivation and the answer, just like where I find my next book to read, is “It’s somewhat random.” I’ve been more of a homebody lately. It’s nice here and it’s summer and I have a porch. I do the usual things like watch the price of gas creep up. But! I got a coupon from my gasoline-buying app where instead of getting ten cents off a gallon, I’d get twenty-five cents. A bargain! But the coupon didn’t work. So I emailed the gas company to complain. They were responsive (shocker) and sent me a new coupon. But I already had a full tank of gasoline. So I decided to go on a drive.
I’ve been very slow-motion working on my Vermont 183 project where I go see all of Vermont’s libraries. Hannah did a high profile version of this recently and I don’t mind if people think I got the idea from her. I still have a few local-ish libraries to go to, so I chose Corinth and Strafford to go to next, since Vershire is only open a few days a week on a Saturday.
The drive to Corinth, in my same county, took me over three small mountains and took nearly an hour. This library, the Blake Memorial, was my local when I lived in Topsham a long time ago and it’s been greatly expanded since then. I’ve also (finally) become a person who is okay walking up to the library workers and saying “Hey I’m visiting libraries, what can you tell me about this one?” The library director at the Blake was new to the job and also went to the same library school as me. In Seattle. Her husband worked in tech and is now a carpenter. We had a lot to chat about. Two different people needed help with tech support while I was there and I helped one lady print an email. I stayed there so long that the library in Strafford was closed by the time that I left so I just drove home. I’d never taken a picture of this library before and now I had several.
It was an amazing day, every mountain road had an incredible view and it was hot and sunny without being broiling. I met a new person who seems neat and I got to check one more library off of my checklist, only 117 or something to go. Got out of the house. Had a story to tell. All because I had a coupon.